Community Outreach

Vet Students Commemorate World Rabies Day 2016

One Health Club Students from the University of Nairobi celebrating the 10th World Rabies Day in Karuri Sub-county, Kiambu County.

One Health Club Students from the University of Nairobi in collaboration with students from Human Medicine and Nursing visited Karuri Sub-county to actively participate in dogs and cats vaccination exercise that was aimed at commemorating the 10th World Rabies Day.

World Rabies Day is a global phenomenon that is celebrated annually to raise awareness about rabies prevention and to highlight progress in defeating this deadly disease. It is conducted in 28 September to also mark the anniversary of Louis Pasteur's death, the French chemist and microbiologist, who developed the first rabies vaccine. This year’s theme was “Rabies: Educate. Vaccinate. Eliminate”. The purpose was to highlight on the education and vaccination as two critical actions that a community can do to prevent rabies, bearing in mind that the global target was to attain zero human deaths from dog-mediated rabies by 2030.

With the assistance of Kiambu County Government officials and the local community, the exercise saw a total of 810 dogs and 36 cats being dewormed and vaccinated against Rabies disease. In addition, 49 male dogs were castrated in a bid to manage dog population. The locals were afterwards educated on dog bites first aid, good animal handling and animal welfare management.

Currently, scientists employ the use of safe and effective human and animal vaccines to eliminate human deaths as a result of rabies while using and community engagement and creation of awareness as an important tool of success towards fighting rabies.

USAID played a critical role in funding the project and while OHCEA-Kenya ensured availability of safe and efficacious animal and human vaccines